junplugged
Taking the slow road
I am recording acoustic guitar and vocal at the same time onto one track, dry. I wanted to try an omni, so the only one I had was an ECM8000. Knowing the high hiss, I set my pre to some setting that had a warmer sound.
The result was a very midrangey sound. I ran it thru a compressor and for some settings, it was odd, the vocal was cut way down but guitar was still there, so then I decided to only use it as a limiter to help with the spikey vocal. I compared it with the bypass and when not limiting it was the same so this was ok.
Next I EQ'd a lot of different settings and then just by chance I tried the extremes also and found that +6 dB of High, and -12 dB of 800 Hz centered mid actually sounded good. Except for the hiss that's enhanced now, this sounds darn good. So I'm wondering if there's something wrong here since these are such extremes in EQ'ing.
The EQ is not telling me the bandwidth and I can't adjust it. I'm getting a different one very soon, maybe I could shelve the top to cut hiss? But I like the vocal up there.
One thing this did, I noticed, was kind of separate the guitar from the vocal, where they were kind of fighting in the same range before.
The other thing that helped this mono track is stereo reverb. It opened up the sound and it doens't have that one-dimensional sound to it anymore. Eventually, I'll dub some simple guitar around the sides, and add a tightly integrated bass and maybe some drums for effect towards the climax near the end.
The result was a very midrangey sound. I ran it thru a compressor and for some settings, it was odd, the vocal was cut way down but guitar was still there, so then I decided to only use it as a limiter to help with the spikey vocal. I compared it with the bypass and when not limiting it was the same so this was ok.
Next I EQ'd a lot of different settings and then just by chance I tried the extremes also and found that +6 dB of High, and -12 dB of 800 Hz centered mid actually sounded good. Except for the hiss that's enhanced now, this sounds darn good. So I'm wondering if there's something wrong here since these are such extremes in EQ'ing.
The EQ is not telling me the bandwidth and I can't adjust it. I'm getting a different one very soon, maybe I could shelve the top to cut hiss? But I like the vocal up there.
One thing this did, I noticed, was kind of separate the guitar from the vocal, where they were kind of fighting in the same range before.
The other thing that helped this mono track is stereo reverb. It opened up the sound and it doens't have that one-dimensional sound to it anymore. Eventually, I'll dub some simple guitar around the sides, and add a tightly integrated bass and maybe some drums for effect towards the climax near the end.